The Woman in the Mirror

FIVE YEARS LATER

Five years is an eternity when you are running for your life.

It is also just enough time to bury a weak girl in the dirt and forge an empire from her ashes.

I stood before the floor-to-ceiling glass window of the Elysium Exchange tower, looking out over the sprawling skyline of the human metropolis. Far to the north, past the smog and towering skyscrapers, lay the jagged mountain ridge of the werewolf territories.

Whiteridge.

A place that now felt like a nightmare from another lifetime.

Turning slightly, my gaze caught my reflection in the polished glass. Even now, after half a decade, the sight made me pause.

The frail, timid Omega who had scrubbed packhouse floors and begged for scraps of affection was dead. She had died in a filthy, rain-soaked alley clinic five years ago, screaming through thirty-six hours of agonizing labor without medicine, without a pack, and without the mate who had sworn to protect her.

When Chloe took her first breath, something inside my soul had shattered—and then rebuilt itself in blinding fire.

The Moon Goddess had not made me barren. She had made me dormant.

The mortal agony of birth had unlocked the ancient, bloodline wolf sleeping within my veins: a pure White Celestial Alpha. The awakening had rewritten every cell in my body. My once mousy, brown hair had thickened into a rich, cascading raven silk with silver undertones. My slight, meek frame had lengthened into sculpted, lethal grace. The soft, round lines of my cheeks were gone, replaced by sharp, aristocratic cheekbones and lips that no longer knew how to plead.

Only my eyes remained the same deep, forest emerald. But behind them, the fearful submission was gone.

Now, there was only steel.

I smoothed the lapel of my tailored ivory blazer, checking my watch.

A brisk knock sounded at the double mahogany doors of my office. My executive assistant, Harper—the only maid from Whiteridge who had treated me like a human being, and whom I had smuggled out two years ago—stepped inside with a thick leather tablet.

"Good morning, CEO Nico," Harper said, keeping the professional facade intact even though her eyes held warm affection. "The quarter-three trade manifests are finalized. The human pharmaceutical conglomerates have agreed to our exclusive distribution rates."

"Good," I replied, my voice smooth, resonant, and calm. "What about the territorial requests?"

Harper hesitated, thumbing through her screen. "The Northern Alliance signed without objection. But... Whiteridge has submitted another formal inquiry."

My fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around my silver pen.

"Reject it," I said without missing a beat. "Just as we did last month. And the month before that."

"Daciana—sorry, Ember," Harper lowered her voice, stepping closer to the massive desk. "Alpha Dominic has increased the trade offer by another fifteen percent. Their border outposts are running desperately low on refined silver suppressants and wolfsbane antitoxins. The council is getting frantic. Dominic’s emissary stated that the Alpha is willing to meet personally to sign any terms Elysium demands."

A cold, bitter curl touched the corner of my lips.

Dominic.

For five years, his pack had tried to secure an audience with the elusive 'CEO Ember Nico,' completely unaware that the billionaire merchant holding the economic chokehold on their medicine was the wolfless mate they had driven out into the snow.

"I don't care if he offers the entire pack's gold reserves," I said, cold disdain dripping from every syllable. "Elysium does not do business with Whiteridge. Send the rejection notice today. Let them choke on their pride."

Before Harper could reply, the private black smartphone on my desk vibrated violently.

My heart hitched. That phone held only one contact.

I snatched it off the marble, swiping the screen. "Dr. Evans? How is she?"

"Ms. Nico," the doctor’s tense voice came through the receiver. "You need to come to St. Jude’s Medical Center immediately. Chloe's fever has spiked past forty degrees Celsius. The tremors have started again."

The icy composure I wore like armor cracked in an instant. Terror, hot and suffocating, flooded my throat.

"I'm on my way," I choked out, slamming the phone down and grabbing my coat.

"Ember? What happened?" Harper gasped.

"Chloe," was all I managed to say before bolting through the private executive elevator.

Twenty minutes later, my black town car screeched to a halt outside the gleaming glass entrance of St. Jude’s—the most adGeorged human-werewolf joint research hospital in the neutral zone.

I bypassed the reception desk, taking the staff stairs two at a time up to the VIP pediatric ward.

When I pushed open the door to Room 402, the sight nearly brought me to my knees.

My four-year-old daughter lay in the center of the massive hospital bed, her tiny frame tangled in white sheets. Her skin was flushed, beads of sweat dampening the dark curls framing her porcelain face. IV lines snaked into her small wrist, and a heart monitor beeped in a rapid, erratic rhythm.

"Chloe..." I rushed to the bedside, dropping to my knees and gathering her burning hand between mine. "Baby, Mommy's here. I'm right here."

Her heavy eyelids fluttered open. Slate-gray irises—an agonizing, exact mirror of the man who had abandoned us—gazed up at me with weary sweetness.

"Mommy..." she whispered, her tiny voice scratchy and faint. "It hurts in my chest. Like fire."

Tears pricked my eyes, but I forced a bright, reassuring smile onto my lips, leaning down to press a kiss to her feverish forehead. "I know, my brave girl. The doctors are giving you medicine. You're going to be okay."

"Mommy..." Chloe reached out a trembling hand, weakly tugging on my blazer. "Can I have... can I have vanilla ice cream? The nurse said... cold things help."

She swallowed hard, her bottom lip quivering. "And... next time... will you bring Mr. Fluff? The bunny with the long ears from home?"

A lump rose in my throat so large it felt like swallowing glass. "Of course. I'll buy you the biggest cup of ice cream right now, and tonight, Harper will bring Mr. Fluff. I promise."

I stayed until her eyes grew heavy from the sedatives and she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Stepping out into the hallway, I found Dr. Evans waiting with a grim expression, reviewing a digital chart.

"What is the prognosis?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "We have the best human suppressants and the purest werewolf tonics on the market. Why isn't her fever breaking?"

Dr. Evans sighed heavily, taking off his glasses. "Ms. Nico, as I've told you before, this isn't a bacterial or viral infection. Chloe possesses an extraordinary concentration of dominant Alpha genetics, but her celestial bloodline has created a fatal void. It's called Aura Starvation."

He pointed to a fluctuating frequency wave on the screen. "A pup with this much dormant power cannot survive on synthetic tonics alone. She requires regular, close-range exposure to her biological father's active Alpha aura to anchor her core. Without it, her own energy will consume her from the inside out."

My blood ran cold.

Her father's aura.

Dominic was the only one whose energy could stabilize her. The very man who had called our child an impossibility, who had chosen Vivian, who had locked me away in the dark.

I would rather tear the world apart with my bare hands than let Dominic anywhere near my daughter.

"Find another way," I said through clenched teeth, my nails digging into the leather of my handbag. "There must be an alternative. A synthetic blocker. An aura transplant. Anything."

"We are researching alternatives, but time is running short," Dr. Evans warned softly. "You have thirty days at most before the organ strain becomes irreversible."

Every word felt like a physical blow.

Numb with grief and boiling with fury, I turned away from the doctor, determined to keep my promise to Chloe. I needed to get her that ice cream. I needed to hold myself together.

I walked down the quiet, carpeted hallway toward the elevators, pressing the call button.

The silver doors slid open with a soft chime.

I took a step forward, and stopped dead in my tracks.

The air in my lungs turned to pure, suffocating ice.

Standing inside the elevator, clad in a charcoal-gray tailored coat that accentuated his broad, lethal frame, was Dominic.

His dark hair was cut sharp, his jaw hardened with a dangerous edge that hadn't been there five years ago. He was reviewing a file in his hand, radiating the suffocating, heavy pressure of an Alpha supreme.

At the sound of the chime, he slowly lifted his slate-gray eyes.

Our gazes collided.

My heart plummeted into a bottomless abyss. The world went dead silent, save for the violent roaring of the blood in my ears.